Percy Thrower knows his onions.

 It’s been a wonderful day. First there was a visit to volunteer at the TRHA store, where I normally do gardening and help out with odd things, but today as we have a pallet order arriving, we had to move the contents of several pallets. On these pallets half the bags have been sold and the rest had to  moved into the compost shed, to make room for the new arrivals. As several of our volunteers were away, I ended up moving a lot of bags, probably in the order of eighty on my own, with the aid of a barrow. A guy up there, he used to grow huge onions, special seeds from Italy, but when his wife got sick, he had to care for her. Unfortunately she is now in a care home, but he has taken to growing them again. They can get up to four and a half pounds each. Last week he said he would give me some seedlings, which he brought this week. These are now in the micro allotment. I also bought bags of manure, which are now forked into the space where the courgette, squash and beans will be. The Spinach seeds I sowed the other day are germinating, which is great. Hopefully the Beetroot and Spring onions will show themselves soon. I also sowed the Broad Beans my neighbour gave me. 

Back at the store, we get a lot of gifted things to sell. One of the items is books. This book by Percy Thrower was there, and I decided to have it. I remember him on Gardeners World, and appearing on Blue Peter. I also think he split with the BBC after I think he appeared on an advert on ITV. In the afternoon, I cleaned the car, for the first time in a year I reckon. It wasn’t that dirty, but it needed a clean inside mainly.  I also made a sticky Toffee Pudding for the evening with my friends, for the dogs birthday party. I readied three bits of carrot, she is always expecting them when she sees me. She had a special dinner, it looked very tasty, especially if you are a dog! We all sang Happy Birthday to her.

One of the things she now has as a toy, which is a fish that wiggles. If you left her with it, she would unfortunately destroy it. So she can’t have it for long. It’s very interactive and she loves it. 

So we had our dinner, a super chicken roast, cooked on the families egg BBQ with all the trimmings. We then followed it with my STP, which went down well I think. It was a lovely evening. I walked back to our road, the family live in a cul de sac off our road, and the dog came out to say goodbye to me. She is funny, she looks for me for ages, even though I am out of sight, and it takes an age to get her back in the house I am told. I think with all the dogs I knew as puppies, there is an extra special connection, because I knew them from puppyhood, like a sort of parent maybe. I love them all.

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